Life on the block... on post
I live near the end of a cul-de-sac in on post housing. Unlike my battle buddy SGT Monobrow, who lives in the middle of a village along a well-traveled road, we get no through traffic. While he is hounded two days after mowing his lawn for it being too long, I had gone a couple of months while my wife was gone without touching the damn thing. Burnt brown Texas stubble was all I was left with, and no one cared. While SGT MB has to deal with people reporting him for leaving his newspaper on his stoop past noon, there is some trash in the road on my street 24/7. If it's not trash, it's children, or children's toys. Or that basketball hoop, which belongs to the guy who's supposed to enforce post regulations, and it's sitting out there in open defiance of those same regs. I turn onto my road going 20, the posted speed limit, and have to brake and play "dodge 'em" with kids who glare at me because I'm interrupting their "playing in traffic" time.
We've had some "parties" on this street. There's the house at the very end that, no matter who is living there, seems to attract drunk white trash infantrymen. I've only had to call the MPs on them once, however. There's the "neighbor" diagonal across the street from us, who seemed to turn her half of the duplex into an R&B/Hip Hop club last weekend. Called the MPs on that one, too, after I went over to let them know they were too loud. And drunk in public. In the middle of the street. And I only received attitude. We're still not sure how their duplex-mate didn't call the MPs, what with her kids trying to sleep. We suspect she felt intimidated because her husband is deployed. Or so we speculate. We haven't actually talked to anyone. We've lived here for nearly 3 years, now.
Tonight, I had to walk down the street, 3 duplexes down on the opposite side, to ask a man to turn down the stereo in his car, at 2220 (10:30 PM for the civvies). He was just... sitting in his van. With the doors open. Listening to some music. I could hear the bass inside my house.
On the bright side, he turned it down.
I really can't reccommend living on-post. Theoretically, they have good response time and fix things the first time you call them. Theoretically, you are housed amongst your peers, professional military types.
Realistically, these are people who can't get by outside of the service. Couldn't find apartments on their own (or stay in them once they got them). And have no interest in finding a better place to live.
I'm tired, I've rambled. I'm down, so I'm down on the situation. But I wouldn't be that happy about it at a peak time, either.